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<title>Don't Turn Left, He Said by LaurentheFlute</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789445">Don't Turn Left, He Said</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurentheFlute/pseuds/LaurentheFlute'>LaurentheFlute</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Transistor (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Internal Monologue, Short One Shot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:22:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>398</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789445</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurentheFlute/pseuds/LaurentheFlute</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not about vengeance. Not really. It's about love.</p>
<p>Part of my #DrabbleNovember challenge. The prompt was "I’ll kick his ass if you want me to.” Obviously I departed from that pretty heavily, but I'm still including the prompt anyway.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Red/Subject | The Boxer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>#DrabbleNovember 2020 Collection</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Don't Turn Left, He Said</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is so much she wants to say, but they took that from her, when they took everything else—her lover, her career, her entire fucking <em>world</em>. They took every god damn thing except for the anger that fuels her, the stubbornness that is the electricity keeping the machine of her body in motion. And they took her voice.</p>
<p>
She had thought her voice <em>was</em> her, was her essence and her identity. She would not have imagined a reality in which she existed and her voice did not exist. But now that she is without her voice and yet she is still impossibly here, still impossibly <em>her</em>, she has learned otherwise.</p>
<p>No, it's the stubbornness that defines her. </p>
<p>The stubbornness gives her the energy and focus to master whatever this power is, the gift to command the code of the world around her and bend it to her will. Once, her voice gave her that kind of power over people's hearts, but in the absence of her voice, she has something else. She has the Transistor, which is a weapon and a tool and also <em>him</em> and she cannot think of it as anything <em>but</em> him, because it has <em>his</em> voice, and it has <em>his</em> laugh, and the same sweet misguided protective nature that saved her life and ended his.</p>
<p>"Don't turn left," he said—the Transistor said—his <em>voice</em> said, through the Transistor—because he thought he could save her. But this has never been about self-preservation. It has never been about her at all.</p>
<p>It isn't vengeance driving her, though she would love—<em>so</em> much—to kick the asses of every single person responsible for this destruction. Every self-important, self-congratulatory member of the Camerata, willing to sacrifice other people's lives to build their vision. So convinced of the superiority of their minds compared to the mediocrity of Cloudbank's inhabitants. And thus they killed, and thus the very fabric of the world began unravelling.</p>
<p>She turned left, not because she wanted to make them pay, but because they took everything from her and she wants it back. Because what good is vengeance, what good is surviving, when you have lost everything and everyone?</p>
<p>She is stubborn as hell, and she is going to see this through to the end, and if there is a way—if there is any way—to get him back…</p>
<p>… she'll take it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have a complicated relationship with Transistor but I love the hell out of Red.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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